Posts archive for February, 2014

Entrepreneurs lose a lot of sleep worrying about making payroll and paying bills. Sammy Wahab is no exception.

But the co-founder and CEO of Mozzaz has something to jump-start his day: An app that could improve the lives of people who suffer memory loss or can’t communicate with the people around them.

“There’s a total sense of satisfaction and not because it’s your own company, but it’s actually about the fact that you’re doing something that makes a difference in a person’s life,” Wahab says.

Mozzaz enables patients and their care providers to customize management of their treatment, leading to better health results. It does this by collecting and securely storing patient information in the cloud, and integrating it with clinical management and electronic health record systems to help clinicians make better treatment decisions.

When you’re in charge of one of the largest distribution networks and private trucking fleets in the world, how do you go about continuously improving safety for sustained, bottom line results?

How do you continuously foster and improve a safety culture that positively impacts risk mitigation, injury reduction and accident cost reduction, while improving employee engagement?

That was the question facing Ken Woodlin in 2010 when he was appointed vice president of compliance,safety and asset protection for Walmart Logistics.

Ken: “When I came into this role, I was fortunate to inherit a safety program with strong compliance components such as policies and procedures already in place. But we wanted to go from a place of strong safety performance to the world’s best. A strong safety culture is important to us, as it defines the characteristics, predictable operation environments, and behavior expectations that create a safe workplace. It becomes as important as any other part of the job.”

Waterloo (Ontario), CANADA, February 21, 2014 – Waterloo’s Accelerator Centre has taken home a 2013 Business Excellence Award for Innovation. The award, presented by the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce at its annual Business Excellence Gala evening, recognizes Chamber members who have made exceptional contributions through their involvement and leadership, making a clear difference and who act as role models in the community.

The Accelerator Centre was recognized by the Chamber for its JumpStart program, a unique six-month mentorship and business acceleration program aimed at assisting engineers and scientists commercialize new products and develop new businesses. Since it’s kick off in January 2013, 30 technology start-ups each received $5K in mentorship from the Accelerator Centre’s team of in-house advisors along with $25K in matching seed financing. As a direct result of the JumpStart program, participating start-ups have created 100+ full time jobs in Waterloo Region and are expected to raise more than $5 million in private investment.

The Accelerator Centre JumpStart program was made possible through a $945K investment from the Federal Economic Development Agency.

“We are honoured to have JumpStart recognized by the Chamber, and we’re thrilled to celebrate this Business Excellence award with the start-ups who have directly benefited from the program,” says Tim Ellis, CEO of the Accelerator Centre. “With its flexible combination of non-residency support and focused mentoring over a six month timeframe, the JumpStart program has allowed us to support many more start-ups, nearly doubling the reach of The Accelerator Program®, our in-house program. As a result we have been able to equip 30 additional companies with the knowledge, network and tools to take a step closer to realize their business goals.”

One of the initial companies funded by the JumpStart program is ESL Explorer, a trusted online marketplace for students to research and buy promotions on English language courses around the world. In less than one year, the company has grown from 2 to 10 full time employees, is already cash flow positive, and now attracts clients from all over the world.

About the Accelerator Centre

The Accelerator Centre is the gold standard for accelerating the growth and commercial success of early-stage technology companies. Our proven formula, The Accelerator Program®, delivers an essential combination of mentorship, education, facilities, funding and networking to the highest potential firms. Our in-house programming provides expertise, resources and support when needed to accelerate time to market, customers, and investment.

Since 2006, the Accelerator Program has developed and nurtured over 120 early-stage technology start-ups, creating 1000+ new jobs, generating over $100 million in revenue, and attracting over $160 million in investment. Thirty-four companies have graduated from The Accelerator Program, and more than 90 percent of these companies have remained in Waterloo Region. For more information visit our website at www.acceleratorcentre.com

WATERLOO, Ont. — An innovative collaboration will provide University of Waterloo students and entrepreneurs the opportunity to work together when Stratford’s Accelerator Centre relocates to the University of Waterloo Stratford Campus this spring.

“This initiative of the Stratford Accelerator Centre and the University of Waterloo creates a unique opportunity—a community based on the networking and collaboration so critical to entrepreneurial success, with the added benefit of being housed within the highly innovative culture that exists on our campus,” said Ginny Dybenko, executive director of the Stratford Campus. “We’re creating and supporting an environment that will help startups reach their goals through interaction with our students, and our students will benefit through direct access to these entrepreneurs.”

With its unique Master of Digital Experience Innovation (MDEI) and Global Business and Digital Arts (GBDA) programs, the campus supports business, technology and arts students who have projects that are ideal for commercialization. The move will give the campus direct access to The Accelerator Program®, an award-winning incubation program for technology startups, with its entrepreneur in residence, mentors and programming support to provide a ready pathway to transform research into commercial reality.

“We are incredibly excited by the potential of blending our startups, experienced team and in-house mentors with Stratford’s students in an on-campus setting,” said Tim Ellis, CEO of the Accelerator Centre. “The interactions and exchange of ideas that will come from this initiative will strengthen the bond on both sides, providing students with another important avenue for applying their learning, and offering startups access to cutting-edge, digital arts expertise, and a pipeline of strong, up-and-coming talent.”

The startups from the Stratford Accelerator Centre are expected to move to the campus at the end of March.

About the Stratford Accelerator Centre

The Stratford Accelerator Centre is a ground-breaking facility dedicated to developing and commercializing technology start-ups. Through The Accelerator Program®, early-stage companies benefit from in-depth business coaching and seamless support services including access to office facilities, coaching and mentoring, education, connections to capital, networking, R&D support and outreach, talent recruitment, technology transfer assistance, and commercialization expertise, enabling technology start-ups to move to market faster, create jobs and stimulate economic activity.

In just half a century, the University of Waterloo, located at the heart of Canada’s technology hub, has become one of Canada’s leading comprehensive universities with 35,000 full- and part-time students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Waterloo, as home to the world’s largest post-secondary co-operative education program, embraces its connections to the world and encourages enterprising partnerships in learning, research and discovery. In the next decade, the university is committed to building a better future for Canada and the world by championing innovation and collaboration to create solutions relevant to the needs of today and tomorrow. For more information about Waterloo, please visit www.uwaterloo.ca.

Kitchener, Ontario–LoyaltyMatch Inc. and Innovagency announced today that they have signed a Reseller Agreement to sell the LoyaltyMatch OnDemand loyalty program Software as a Service (SaaS) solution in Europe and Brazil. The agreement provides Innovagency clients with access to LoyaltyMatch OnDemand solutions, as well as implementation and support services.

LoyaltyMatch OnDemand helps companies of all sizes motivate their customers with incentives given through online and offline activities, while providing the marketing tools to increase engagement and lift revenue. OnDemand can be deployed as a standalone solution or integrated with existing social, web,mobile, e- and m-commerce, or POS systems.

“We help brands and organizations build, innovate and win in the digital world,” said Pedro Barbosa, Head of Product Development of Innovagency. LoyaltyMatch has done an outstanding job in designing their LoyaltyMatch On Demand SaaS package. We believe that we are adding another piece to the strong foundation that our clients need to win in their markets and we are eager get be working with the LoyaltyMatch team.”

About LoyaltyMatch Inc.

LoyaltyMatch Inc. is a privately held loyalty and engagement-computing company with a product portfolio that includes LoyaltyMatch On Demand and Social Loyalty. LoyaltyMatch OnDemand (www.loyaltymatchondemand.com) provides a cloud-based loyalty management and gamification platform. Social Loyalty (www.social-loyalty.com) deepends engagement to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social services. Together they offer their clients, such as Clarins USA, eTix, I.M.P Productions and Digital Currency Solutions, the fastest path to the development and delivery of loyalty and engagement initiatives and have revolutionized the way businesses manage customer value. LoyaltyMatch Inc. is based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.

About Innovagency S.A.

Innovagency (www.innovagency.com) is a leading digital services company with offices in Portugal and Brazil. We believe that digital should be an integral part of any modern business strategy and that the combination of multidisciplinary skills is essential to finding the best strategies and solutions. Combining technological expertise, design and user experience and marketing and communication, Innovagency promotes innovation, creativity and business sense to respond to customer’s needs throughout the lifecycle of digital initiative and assumes the role of a digital business enabler, helping brands and organizations to succeed in the digital world.

The Company also announced early results for its ongoing clinical study with surgeons at Mount Sinai and selected Toronto Area Hospitals showing the Company’s smart tool to be significantly more accurate in determining leg length and offset equivalency than traditional measurement methods used in hip replacement.

On January 15, 2014, McMaster University, on behalf of 10 leading Ontario universities, announced the selection of Energent’s energy management information system to be commissioned for all 10 institutions – McMaster, Carleton, Ottawa, Waterloo, Trent, Queens, Lakehead, Brock, Laurentian and Windsor.

Energent’s best in class modeling and analytics solution will enable these universities to reach their individual and collective energy management goals, by tracking their individual energy performance as well as benchmarking and comparing their usage across the full portfolio of the 10 campuses. The insight provided by the software, and the technical expertise of Energent’s Energy Analysts, will provide each university with the information necessary to reduce their energy spend. Energy Managers and Facility Managers will now be able to share best practices between their respective universities more easily.

With the Energent system these universities will be able to quickly comply with Ontario’s mandatory 397/11 reporting requirements, introduced in July 2013, which require that all public buildings report their energy usage and carbon emissions, as well as their energy management plan to reduce those on an annual basis. Energent’s automated data collection and reporting system will eliminate the costly manual effort that was previously required for complying with the regulation, freeing up valuable time for more strategic initiatives.

There is also a plan to engage the campus community in reducing energy consumption and adopt energy conservation initiatives through the use of an interactive marketing campaign. The highly intuitive dashboard of the Energent system will provide a “kiosk” capability to broaden awareness of the importance of reducing energy and carbon emissions.

The UEDBS program has a very fast-track timeline as well as a demanding set of functional and operational requirements. The initial inquiry for pre-qualification was issued to a wide array of suppliers, and resulted in a short list of 5 to respond to a formal RFP. “We evaluated several energy management information systems and benchmarking software suppliers for our University Utility Energy Database and Benchmarking System (UEDBS). We found Energent to best satisfy our technical requirements within the project timeframe and budget” stated Shahid Naeem, Energy Management and Sustainability Engineer at McMaster University, and project lead for the UEDBS program.

“Energent is very pleased to have been selected for such a prestigious project with these prominent Ontario institutions.” says Chris Reid, President and CEO at Energent. “Our selection by the UEDBS team validates our belief that the Energent suite of software and services is recognized across North America as the best in class in energy management information systems. We look forward to delivering a world-class system for analyzing and benchmarking their energy use.”

About Energent:

Energent is a leading provider of energy management technologies in North America for industrial, institutional, and commercial customers. Based out of Waterloo, Ontario, Energent provides its state-of-the-art technology via software-as-a-service (SaaS), ensuring cost effective deployments and valuable ongoing services. Energent has leading companies as customers across all sectors and regions in Canada and the US. For more information, please visit www.energent.com.

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Accelerator Centre – Headquarters

295 Hagey Blvd 1st Floor, West Entrance Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6R5

info@acceleratorcentre.com

(519) 342-2400

Who We Are

The Accelerator Centre is an award winning startup incubator dedicated to building and scaling sustainable, globally competitive technology firms; and to commercializing advanced research technologies emerging from academic institutions.